Posts by Jim Cathcart
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The Observatory is a fantastic venue in Saigon. Make it there now and then.
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But RNZ is in the new survey conducted by the Australian company GfK, which took over the commercial ratings from Research International last year, after a messy period in which there was no overall commercial ratings survey.
GfK is actually a German company and Research International folded quite some ago.
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Speaker: The Government you Deserve, in reply to Russell Brown,
Oh god, don’t make me read that Pilger column again. It’s incoherent.
Bit of a stretch. I think his comments about the "patrician class" are right on the money.
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Speaker: The Government you Deserve, in reply to Russell Brown,
I hear you Russell. Interesting to note that Matt's opinions are echoed in those of John Pilger's.
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We will one day view neo-liberal dogma as a fantasy invented by social scientists masquerading as mathematicians. Marx was an economist, and it is another bunch who have invented their own nonsense. This is at the root of our problems, because it fundamentally fails to consider us as a social species. It is an ideology that assumes everyone is a sociopath (which is why it tends to be sociopaths who float to the top of it).
Actually, neo-liberal dogma is based on the assumption that the individual acts in their own self interest and is a rational decision maker. However, I think that what has happened in the UK by leaving the EU is actually a victory against neo-liberal dogma. I suggest that you read Matt Ellis 'The Left should celebrate Brexit: UK just kicked Neoliberalism in the nuts' to understand the reality.
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Hard News: Forgetting what we didn't know, in reply to izogi,
Sure, but a core explanation of the benefits of NG isn't actually that complex. What is more complex is understanding to which NG factors into decision variables and then modelling that into the impact on house prices.
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Hard News: Forgetting what we didn't know, in reply to izogi,
The media in Australia is only addressing is because the govt is bricking itself about how a manufactured bubble fits in within an economic environment where the China story is looking increasingly sketchy and potentially destructive by the hour.
Macrobusiness has been on top of it for years and the mainstream media in Australia has only recently started to react as they’ve been largely buying into the bullshit.
Also, nobody has tried to quantify the impacts of negative gearing on consumption and investment decisions. The lack of behavioral research into it appears to be non-existent.
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From Naked Capitalism back in 2011, way before dodgy company registration related to money laundering, tax evasion, etc was fashionable.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/08/new-zealand-company-registry-whack-a-mole.html
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"Global recessions tend to begin when newly popular narratives reduce individuals’ motivation to spend money."- Robert Schiller
I would say that someone in the govt understands very well the impacts that house prices have on consumer spending. That is not to say that Auckland house prices are driving the consumer economy in Auckland, but to understand the impact on spending if people "feel" that the value of their house has decreased by $1K is extremely important. And this is the big grey area. I don't know of anyone in NZ who is doing qualitative and quantitative research into this (unlike the wonderful Digital Finance Analytics in Australia http://www.digitalfinanceanalytics.com/)
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Good article about taxation policy and paying rent to toddlers in Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-29/knight-game-of-homes/7369312